Author: tim

Pixies

I’m going to be a typical blogger right now and talk about the Pixies reunion. Please bear with me.

So, it’s official. The Pixies have at least one scheduled show in 2004, at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California on May 1st.

There is no reason for me not to be really excited about this reunion, but somehow I’m not. I definitely want to see them play again and hope it will be real fun. I’ve seen the Pixies twice (Doolittle and Trompe le Monde tours) and even staged a night of Doolittle at a local club in 2002. I’m a huge Pixies fan. There’s just something about this reunion that smells funny.

I have it on pretty good authority that this reunion tour is only about the money and that Black Francis and Kim Deal haven’t really spoken since the band broke up around 13 years ago. I know that everyone knows all reunion tours are about the money, but this one seems like such a cash grab that it really rubs me the wrong way. The fact that Frank Black needs a new house is not a good reason to plan a reunion tour. (By the way, needing a new house is a good reason to plan a tour for your current band, but I digress.)

Maybe I’m being a little too cynical. I don’t know, I just wish there was even the slightest glimmer of artistic reasons or a reconciliation of Kim and Frank that was the impetus for getting the band back together and playing again. Otherwise, it just seems so hollow.

Maybe this tour will be amazing and a love-fest and I’ll be proven wrong. I sincerely hope so. But part of me just wants to stay home and listen to the albums.

Recording!

Magnapop made our first step toward creating a new album yesterday. We did some pre-production work on three songs in a friend’s new demo studio in beautiful Little Five Points in Atlanta, GA.

I’m really excited to be working on this recording and look forward to making the best damn album we can. I think we’re going about the process in an intelligent way, trying to figure out how to use the studio as another instrument and not just book some time in an expensive studio and record the songs. We are practicing the recording process while it’s still cheap and will be able to use this experience and the ideas that come out of it when we go spend the big bucks. This will allow us to try more ideas and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

My last experience recording an album on this scale was way back in October, 1996 with my band Marcy. The whole band went to upstate New York for over a month and recorded/lived in this amazing studio called Sweetfish with Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Weezer, Mercury Rev) producing. It was a dream situation. We spent three weeks tracking the album and one week of mix down.

Unfortunately, the experience was a little too much for our band and the process ultimately led to our break up. The album came out, but Marcy didn’t survive and we all went on to other things. We were just a little bit too young at the time and weren’t ready to be away from our normal lives for that long and be under the pressure of creative expectations and record label politics. I think if we had recorded the album at home, we could have survived with our sanity intact. I know we all have no regrets, though, and are just thankful that we had the experience.

The Magnapop album won’t have as big a budget and no official producer, so we will be more reliant on ourselves for discipline and planning. The big difference is maturity. Magnapop have so much collective experience at this point that I am confident we can create a great album on our own. The current plan is to continue recording demos for a few more weeks and then start recording the “real” thing in February after we get the moolah from the label. We will probably be using three different studios around Georgia. I’m going to try and write about as much of the process as possible on these pages, so stay tuned.

Plan Accordingly

If you haven’t already heard, we’re pretty much screwed on the holiday thing for 2004. Almost all of the major holidays fall on a weekend, so us working stiffs are going to be hard pressed to find 3 or 4 day weekends in which to frolic this year.

Now, I know you just got off a 2 week stretch of pretty much no working like I did, but that’s no excuse to not start thinking about the upcoming year. And with these weekend holidays it’s not going to be easy to plan. Well never fear, because your friends at workingfortheman.com have come up with an easy guide to planning your sick days this year. Remember: sometimes it takes a lot of work to goof off from your job.

THE ROAD TO TURDUCKEN

Happy Holidays, themuy readers! I hope you’re having as much fun as I am with the not working and the too much drinking and eating. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s only a cliche because it’s so damn true. You eat too much during the holidays. And with that in mind, I must direct your browser to:

THE ROAD TO TURDUCKEN

A hilarious step-by-step instruction on how to make a turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken. Only in America. Don’t forget to read part two. It gets funnier.

I hope everyone has a safe New Year’s Eve celebration and I’ll see ya next year!

Excerpt from Diane Sawyer – George Bush Interview…

in which I take the words “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and replace them with “Santa Claus” and replace “weapons” with “Santa”:

DIANE SAWYER: Fifty percent of the American people have said that they think the administration exaggerated the evidence going into the war with Iraq, Santa Claus, connection to terrorism. Are the American people wrong? Misguided?

PRESIDENT BUSH: The intelligence I operated on was good sound intelligence, the same intelligence that my predecessor operated on. The – there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a threat. The – otherwise the United Nations might – wouldn’t a passed, you know, resolution after resolution after resolution, demanding that he disarm. … I first went to the United Nations, September the 12th, 2002, and said you’ve given this man resolution after resolution after resolution. He’s ignoring them. You step up and see that he honor those resolutions. Otherwise you become a feckless debating society. … And so for the sake of peace and for the sake of freedom of the Iraqi people, for the sake of security of the country, and for the sake of the credibility of institu – in – international institutions, a group of us moved, and the world is better for it.

DIANE SAWYER: But let me try to ask – this could be a long question. … When you take a look back, Vice President Cheney said there is no doubt, Saddam Hussein has Santa Claus, not programs, not intent. There is no doubt he has Santa Claus. Secretary Powell said 100 to 500 tons of chemical Santas and now the inspectors say that there’s no evidence of these Santas existing right now. The yellow cake in Niger, in Niger. George Tenet has said that shouldn’t have been in your speech. Secretary Powell talked about mobile labs. Again, the intelligence – the inspectors have said they can’t confirm this, they can’t corroborate.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yet.

DIANE SAWYER: – an active –

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yet.

DIANE SAWYER: Is it yet?

PRESIDENT BUSH: But what David Kay did discover was they had a Santa program, and had that, that – let me finish for a second. Now it’s more extensive than, than missiles. Had that knowledge been examined by the United Nations or had David Kay’s report been placed in front of the United Nations, he, he, Saddam Hussein, would have been in material breach of 1441, which meant it was a causis belli. And look, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous person, and there’s no doubt we had a body of evidence proving that, and there is no doubt that the president must act, after 9/11, to make America a more secure country.

DIANE SAWYER: Again, I’m just trying to ask, these are supporters, people who believed in the war who have asked the question.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you can keep asking the question and my answer’s gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger and the world is better off cause we got rid of him.

DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were Santa Claus as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those Santas still –

PRESIDENT BUSH: So what’s the difference?

DIANE SAWYER: Well –

PRESIDENT BUSH: The possibility that he could acquire Santas. If he were to acquire Santas, he would be the danger. That’s, that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be de – dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man’s a danger. And so we got rid of him and there’s no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.

DIANE SAWYER: But, but, again, some, some of the critics have said this combined with the failure to establish proof of, of elaborate terrorism contacts, has indicated that there’s just not precision, at best, and misleading, at worst.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. Look – what – what we based our evidence on was a very sound National Intelligence Estimate. …

DIANE SAWYER: Nothing should have been more precise?

PRESIDENT BUSH: What – I, I – I made my decision based upon enough intelligence to tell me that this country was threatened with Saddam Hussein in power.

DIANE SAWYER: What would it take to convince you he didn’t have Santa Claus?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Saddam Hussein was a threat and the fact that he is gone means America is a safer country.

DIANE SAWYER: And if he doesn’t have Santa Claus [inaudible] –

PRESIDENT BUSH: Diane, you can keep asking the question. I’m telling you – I made the right decision for America –

DIANE SAWYER: But-

PRESIDENT BUSH: – because Saddam Hussein used Santa Claus, invaded Kuwait. … But the fact that he is not there is, means America’s a more secure country.

It Still Sucks

A funny thing happened to me yesterday. A song that was playing on my stereo annoyed me so much I had to stop what I was doing and go remove the CD from the player.

The song was off of My Morning Jacket’s It Still Moves, an album I bought because I wanted to try something new and had heard some good talk about the band.

I tried to like the album, I really did. I played it on my commute (1.5 hours round trip) for about three days. When that didn’t work, I took a break for about a week and tried again. No luck. This album sucks.

People talk about how great the singer’s voice is and how it’s so cool that the songs are bathed in an amazing amount of reverb. I just keep thinking how much it sounds like the Steve Miller Band.

It’s very puzzling to me because I have a very broad taste in music. I can listen to almost anything and find some redeeming qualities. But this band grates my very last nerve. Maybe it’s the fact that most songs are about 6-7 minutes long. Not because they have so much to say, more because they want to just “jam out” for no particular reason. I have never heard such pointless music. It seriously turns my stomach.

So, if anyone wants a slightly used My Morning Jacket album, let me know. I’ll sell it real cheap.

Faris Tilton

Yesterday a friend of mine suggested that I mention Paris Hilton on my blog so I would get more hits. I can’t believe he thinks that I’m so shallow that I would stoop to mentioning someone (Paris Hilton) just to increase my Web traffic. I would expect a little more respect than that. Jeez, you think you know someone pretty well and then they start assuming things about you that are preposterous (kind of like how Paris Hilton thought she knew her boyfriend pretty well and didn’t expect him to show that video they made to anyone else, but I digress.) and reflects how little they in fact do know about you.

If I were to start talking about Paris Hilton, it would be kind of interesting to see just how much of an increase in traffic that would bring, but I’m not going to do it (write Paris Hilton on my blog). My (2) loyal readers expect just a little more of me and I’m not going to disappoint them. I think Paris Hilton would agree with me as well.

So, let me repeat, I am not going to write the words “Paris Hilton” on my blog in some shallow attempt to benefit from the traffic that would result from people typing “Paris Hilton” in a search engine somewhere.

And I definitely will NOT mention Paris Hilton’s Sex Tape. I’m sorry, but I have morals and will simply not go there.